`Exit Strategy' A Top U.s. Concern In Bosnia

As Troops Head For Balkans, Talk Centers On Duration Of Mission

December 16, 1995|By Terry Atlas, Washington Bureau.

WASHINGTON — With a green light from NATO and the United Nations, heavily armed American and European troops start streaming toward Bosnia this weekend on a well-intentioned, if perilous, peacekeeping mission.

But just as bad weather is complicating their arrival, there are worries that bad planning, or just plain bad luck, could jeopardize the Clinton administration's timetable for their departure within a year.

In the Senate, which expressed uneasy support for the large-scale peacekeeping operation, lawmakers from both parties voiced anxiety about a potential Balkan entanglement and whether the administration has an adequate exit strategy.

"A date is not an exit strategy," said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who led the successful, if reluctant, effort to back President Clinton's decision to send American peacekeeping troops.

But while the risks are very real--foremost among them, weather-related accidents, land mines, and potential rogue fighters--the Pentagon planners have set out a limited and, they say, probable set of tasks for the NATO-led Bosnian Peace Implementation Force (IFOR).

These include ensuring the separation of forces along a winding, 625-mile boundary line between the Muslim-Croat federation and the Bosnian-Serb-held territory, maintaining the cease-fire, monitoring the withdrawal of heavy weapons to bases and overseeing transfers of territory between the formerly warring parties.

"The missions are, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, very clearly achievable within one year," said Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser.

They do not include, officials repeatedly assert, so-called nation-building tasks, such as transporting humanitarian aid, running elections, or hunting alleged war criminals.

The plan is to give Bosnians, after suffering the worst atrocities seen in Europe since World War II, what Lake calls "a breathing space" that will break the momentum of war.

At the same time, the U.S. plans to lead an international effort, separate from IFOR, to arm and train the Bosnian Muslim military forces to better defend themselves once the American troops leave. "This is the ticket home for Americans," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.).

There is no clear link between accomplishing IFOR's limited military tasks and achieving the political objectives of stability and long-term peace in Bosnia. "As a result," said one military analyst, "we may succeed militarily and yet not achieve the political objectives."

Retired Army Col. William Taylor, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the one-year timetable is clearly a political decision to reassure Americans that the U.S, won't become mired in the Balkans. But, he said, it does give Clinton the ability to withdraw troops without losing face if the Bosnian factions prove unwilling to establish a real peace.

"That's not a sign of failure. That's doing exactly what he said he was going to do," Taylor said.

NATO's top political body, the North Atlantic Council, Friday reviewed the rules of engagement and other aspects of the peacekeeping plan and then gave its approval early Saturday, official launching the mission. The approval came after the United Nations Security Council gave its authorization for the the mission on Friday.

With these two pro forma acts completed, Defense Secretary Perry sent a deployment order to U.S. Gen. George Joulwan, who plays the dual role as head of NATO forces in Europe and commander of all American forces there.

The first U.S. combat troops to move into Bosnia will be the 3rd Battalion of the 325th Parachute Infantry Regiment, based at Vicenza, Italy.

About 900 paratroopers will fly into Tuzla, probably on C-130 transports, to secure the Tuzla airport for the arrival of a U.S. forward command post. The paratroopers probably will go to Tuzla this weekend, according to Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon.